What if God is real but quiet to max out your free choices?

[Animavore]

It's not "ragequitting". Just pointing out truth. You guys are feeding the cancer instead of excising it. You're debasing yourselves by being puppets for a worthless troll. It's fucking pathetic. And yes, I'm aware I allowed myself be trolled too at one point, and I feel pathetic for it.

Seriously. Cop-on to reality. The prick is laughing at you all.

[laklak]

There is but one God, and The Dude (WRBUH)* is his prophet. But that's just, like, my opinion, man.

* White Russians Be Upon Him

[Seth]

Don't respond to posts aimed at me which I can't even see.

There are none so blind as those who will not see...

It's bad enough you dimwits are allowing yourself to be troll fodder. Don't be doubly trolled by taking up my charge.

Fuck sake. I think I'm going to be the next here to leave. Not because of that gobshite, but because of everyone else's continued insistence to indulge him. I losing respect for this forum.

Poor baby.

[Seth]

Don't respond to posts aimed at me which I can't even see. It's bad enough you dimwits are allowing yourself to be troll fodder. Don't be doubly trolled by taking up my charge.

Fuck sake. I think I'm going to be the next here to leave. Not because of that gobshite, but because of everyone else's continued insistence to indulge him. I losing respect for this forum.

Seth isn't a troll. He uses that legend to confuse the masses.

Works pretty well, doesn't it?

Actually, I've never called myself a troll, because I'm not a troll, I'm a Socratic interlocutor. I merely found the quote to be highly amusing and perfectly true, as Animavore demonstrates.

[Seth]

It's not "ragequitting". Just pointing out truth. You guys are feeding the cancer instead of excising it. You're debasing yourselves by being puppets for a worthless troll. It's fucking pathetic. And yes, I'm aware I allowed myself be trolled too at one point, and I feel pathetic for it.

Seriously. Cop-on to reality. The prick is laughing at you all.

No, just you. Everybody else has the wit to understand that keeping you happy and comfortable is not the purpose of the forum.

[Brian Peacock]

It's not "ragequitting". Just pointing out truth. You guys are feeding the cancer instead of excising it. You're debasing yourselves by being puppets for a worthless troll. It's fucking pathetic. And yes, I'm aware I allowed myself be trolled too at one point, and I feel pathetic for it.

Seriously. Cop-on to reality. The prick is laughing at you all.

I'm not bother if anyone is chuckling or not, and I'm robust enough not to be worried by personal digs, uncharitable misrepresentations, spurious condition setting, or moralising rantage. In fact, resorting to these kind of tactics just undercuts whatever point they're supposed to bolster. Most people get this, Shirley?

[Jason]

Temple. But what's the point?

[Seth]

I have never claimed either to possess, or be able to offer such a proof. That was not the point of my examples. I was simply highlighting the futility of playing "what if" when it comes to putative, supernatural entities.

You mean like the futility of "what if God doesn't exist?" That futility? Yeah, I got it, your arguments against the existence of God are entirely futile because you have zero credible, critically robust scientific evidence that God does not exist, so you're being just exactly as irrational as those you claim are being irrational in claiming God does exist.

Nah, XC wasn't declaring "God does not exit" but highlighting the futility of playing what-if when it comes to putative, supernatural entities. To dispute this on the grounds that playing what-if is a reasonable game unless or until there are credible, critically robust scientific evidences that God does not exist is itself irrational, erecting as it does fallacious conditions to the game of what-if which presume at the outset that playing what-if when it comes to putative, supernatural entities is the only reasonable, rational game in town. Playing "What if God doesn't exist?" is, for XC and many others, just as futile as playing "What if God does exist?". If you're not disputing this basic point, then what b'jaysus are you on about? If you are disputing this point, then what credible, critically robust scientific evidence can be put forward to assure and/or convince us that "What if God does exist?" is a reasonable, rational game to begin with?

Er, the point is that the entire argument is a self-delusional circular argument based on irrational thinking and bias. The whole "what if" digression is just that, a digression and derail from the OP.

As I've said so many times, it is indeed futile, and more than a little juvenile, to make proclamations about religion and "putative supernatural entities" when one has absolutely no evidence upon which to base such comments. It's tautological argumentation based in the Atheist's Fallacy of creating a definition of God that is inherently supernatural and therefore by definition beyond scientific understanding. The problem is that the only evidence you have that this is the case is the statements of theists who claim that God is supernatural. But if they are right, then God is supernatural and beyond scientific understanding and the only thing rational non-believers can say about God is "I don't know" because by definition they can know nothing that is beyond "nature" and therefore amenable to scientific investigation. On the other hand, if they are wrong about the supernatural character of God, which is likely, then God is not supernatural and is amenable to scientific investigation. But until such scientific investigation has taken place and demonstrated that God either exists or does not exist (within nature) then again the only rational thing anyone purporting to worship at the altar of science can say is...wait for it..."I don't know." This is true because the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Then again, with respect to the "what if" argument, is not science itself nothing more than a giant "what if" exercise?

What if I mix this chemical with that chemical?

What if the universe began with a singularity?

Etc.

It is the "what ifs" of the world that drive the search for answers, and that is the very basis of scientific inquiry.

So no, "what if" with respect to God is not futile, it's the fundamental starting point for a Dawkins-approved scientific investigation of God.

[Brian Peacock]

So why do you spend so much of you free time here defending beliefs which you consider futile and irrational - evidence-free religious assertions, claims and insistences?

[Seth]

So why do you spend so much of you free time here defending beliefs which you consider futile and irrational - evidence-free religious assertions, claims and insistences?

I don't defend such beliefs, I challenge the futile and irrational beliefs of Atheists and their evidence-free religious assertions, claims and insistences.

[Brian Peacock]

And yet you zealously defend the religious against being disbelieved, disrespected, disregarded, criticised, admonished, and ridiculed. You say that it's futile to make proclamations about supernatural entities but what-ifs are okay because they drive development and knowledge, unless they lead to the religious being disbelieved, disrespected, disregarded, criticised, admonished, and ridiculed, at which point you declare them Religious and futile.
My point, which I'm sure you grit, is obvious; you are an irrationally Religious disbeliever, disrespecter, disregarder, criticiser, admonisher, and ridiculer of atheism, and this is irrational and illogical as long as you continue to fail to produce credible, critically robust scientific evidence that God does not not exist.

[mistermack]

Ani,
what you are missing is that other people can handle being trolled, and sometimes find it amusing, and can troll back.
I know Seth is always trolling, and his stances are designed to irritate, rather than fuel debate, but it doesn't bother me one bit. I quite like reading the responses.
Seth's latest fad is to claim that he is only trying to stimulate debate, but of course, that's trolling too.
When I look at someone's reply to Seth, I ask myself, what would a troll answer to that?
And sure enough, that's what he writes. I quite like the confirmation, of knowing the troll's next troll, before he writes it.

I don't think people are being puppets, as you put it. They are mostly being amused.

[Scot Dutchy]

I agree with Ani why waste time feeding trolls instead of having a worthwhile discussion. Seth has been trolling since the the RD forum was started and has kept it up ever since. He never has anything new to bring into any discussion. He just regurgitates every thing what he has said already. Well if you enjoy ploughing your way through crap good luck to you.

[Brian Peacock]

What is a troll?

[mistermack]

What is a troll?

As I understand it, trolling is a method of fishing from a boat. You drag a lure along behind the boat, and wait for the fish to take the bait.